Streetwise

Time to Count Their Blessings

Loral Space: a rising star.

THIS IS USUALLY THE TIME OF YEAR IN THE markets when it makes sense to invoke H.L. Mencken's cynical definition of a wealthy man: One who earns precisely $100 a year more than his wife's sister's husband.

The tendency among professional investors to define success in relative terms encourages the common view that fund managers are motivated to buy their way up the ranks in the final weeks of the year, reinforcing -- or causing --...